DCI agent: Tyler admitted drowning baby

February 13, 2013

Hillary Tyler told an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent that she put her newborn baby in a motel bathtub to drown it.

Tyler also told DCI Special Agent Mike Roehrkasse that the baby cried and moved after she gave birth.

Prosecutors played the interview between Roehrkasse and Tyler, which was taped on Sept. 20, 2011, for the jury Wednesday morning during Tyler's first-degree murder trial in Webster County District Court.

In the morning, jurors were shown three photos of the baby's body. Webster County Medical Examiner Dr. Dan Cole told jurors he put the baby boy's body in a cooler, along with a portion of the umbilical cord both of which were collected from a wastebasket in the Super 8 motel room in Fort Dodge. He later went to the Coalville trailer where Tyler lived with the baby's father, Rodney Cyphers, and collected a placenta from a wastebasket.